ever left anything behind?, if u know what I mean!

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Have any of u ever left anything behind in a patient , if so what and when did u realize it!. I'm interested in the support u got from your managers and colleagues. I realized on my last count that I was missing a sponge. I immediately informed the surgeon who told me it couldent be in the patient, I insisted he look again and again he told me to do the count again or look around or "are u sure you had it in the beginning". I had already done everything he'd suggested and again told him it must be in the patient. I finally had to call in the or supervisor to ask him to check the patient. Guess what he found?. What surprised me most was the way my colleagues reacted to ME. I felt that I had almost done something wrong. My concern was, what if I had left something in the patient. We do the best we can under a lot of pressure all the time. Sometimes when we're short of staff we have to scrub plus keep and eye on the circulator plus the anaesthetic nurse and do our job at the table. While these mistakes are few and far between I do know they happen,so how do nurses react to a scrub nurse who's miscounted or mislaid something. I'm hopeing u tell me that nurse gets all the support they deserve .

The surgeon should be taking you out to dinner! I will stop doing everything when I am scrubbing until the object is found. I will not give any closing suture and will basically back away from the table until then. If your colleagues don't like it, TOUGH! What do they think counting is all for, just for the fun of it. The responsibility of the final count lies with the nursing staff and I would hope your hospital has a policy in place to protect you from unconcerning surgeons. Our policy allows us to take an x-ray, without an order from the surgeon, to look for missing objects. The patient is not allowed off the table nor out of the room until said object is located. This is to protect everyone and the liability that occurs from lawsuits. retained objects are the most common reason for malpractice lawsuits and like I said before the surgeon should be a heck of alot more appreciative. Mike

I work in a cardiovascular surgical unit, and if sponge and needle counts are incorrect, they will do a chest xray for visual, AFTER the patient is closed up and sent to the critical care unit. Not sure what they would do if they actually found a needle or something in somebody's chest. Take him back to the OR? Never seen it happen yet though.

Well, the other day, about 5 hours after one of my patients gave birth, the doc told me we should check on her one more time because he had a feeling he might have left a sponge behind...He had....He didn't have any idea why he suddenly got that feeling...I never would have known and think of the infection that may have ensued!